State Rep. George Flaggs said the 5 minutes he had with President Barack Obama Tuesday was just enough time to invite the president to Mississippi to discuss health care.

“I had the opportunity to tell him how important health care is to Mississippi,” Flaggs said this morning from Washington, D.C., where Vicksburg’s senior legislator was among 12 members of the National Black Caucus for State Legislators who heard the president and top staffers discuss the effects of the “fiscal cliff” on education, defense and other spending priorities. Flaggs chairs the business and insurance committee for the D.C.-based organization.

Following an hour of policy talk in the Roosevelt Room, members of NBCSL gathered for a photo in the Oval Office. On the way, Flaggs said, he squeezed in a pitch for the president to visit the state.

“I asked him to come to Mississippi,” Flaggs said. “He said, ‘Why not two times?’”

Obama and congressional leaders have until year’s end to reach a deal on tax rates and spending cuts. Flaggs said the president and staffers such as Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner painted a scary scenario for the nation if a deal isn’t reached.

“It may slide us into another recession,” Flaggs said, adding cuts in education funding geared to low-income families would damage the state’s universities.

“There’s important research and those and other entities are tied to discretionary funds,” he said.

Obama also briefed members of the National Governors Association on Tuesday regarding the looming deadline. Driving the debate is whether to keep current tax code or roll back rates to 1990s-era levels.

Flaggs, who is retiring from the Legislature effective July 1 and has said he will announce next month whether he will seek the mayor’s seat in 2013 elections, said he cherished the chance to meet the president.

“To have an opportunity to meet the president of the United States was an awesome experience for me,” he said.